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0 ADV Topic

I've seen a lot of people putting 0 into Advanced Scouting. Obviously, you save money elsewhere, but isn't it hard to evaluate players with no idea if the ratings are true? Some of those people are even active in trading - how can they possibly know what they are trading for?

I'd love for someone to explain the philosophy behind this strategy, and maybe even give an example or two of how it's worked for you.

You can see his development patterns by tracking how much each of his key ratings have progressed from season to season. You can see that development slows down as you go from S21 --> S22 --> S23 --> S24. It's not difficult to observe that slowdown and project what each of those numbers will be (within a point or so) when the development will stop for each of the key ratings. Those become your projections instead of what you see in the "Projected" line.

I'd like to ask the reverse question in a couple of ways. First, I had the 0 ADV concept explained to me. You learn to make projections on your own. The growth of players is predictable enough.

Now, I'm just starting my second season. In my first season I ran with the minimum allowed ADV, 6 million. At 6 million I quickly realized that the projections were already ludicrous. Like a 26 year old player, currently 65, projected to 76 - impossible. This season I cut it right down to 2 million and the projections are only marginally more stupid.

The point being - These are only projections, right? How much is the system programmed to overestimate, underestimate, or even lie to you? Is there a dollar value at which Advance Scouting becomes fully reliable at all? And has anyone played at that value, and gained a competitive advantage by doing so?

At $20M they're quite reliable. It could be a competitive advantage if you don't need that $20M for players, or if there are morons in your world who will trade great prospects for crappy veterans or non-prospects. The projections become less reliable as you spend less on ADV, so I'd argue that $6M is no different from 0, since you have no way of knowing which ratings are accurate and how far off most of them are. 0 works if you can resist the urge to trade for players without a full season in the database so you can see their improvement (given 2 seasons of spring training ratings, you can make reasonably accurate projections for any player).

Posted by crickett13 on 12/3/2012 9:07:00 PM (view original):You can also take into consideration that most owners (including myself) overvalue very young prospects so much they may not be worth trading for anyway.

This. Most owners won't trade a 19-20 y/o who might one day be good for anything less than a king's ransom. Couple that with pretty straight development patterns and the knowledge that high bonus IFA/draft picks are pretty much the only prospects worth getting and you have no reason to worry about the other 31 teams' young players. Beyond that, you should know if your prospects are going to be any good.

Look around your world, see what the other teams are doing with their budgets. You'll see some very interesting strategies. One of the most talented teams in my world has 0 College, 0 HS, 0 Adv, 0 Medical and only 7 Coaching. So clearly all his extra money is going to go into any good IFAs who come up, or trades.

Posted by kevintam90 on 12/4/2012 2:41:00 AM (view original):Am I correct with the assumption the good teams dont put any money in their college and HS scouting because those draft picks are going to be useless to them regardless anyways?

Because of the 4m+/-, it's a tricky strategy unless you think you can be a contender every season. I tend to bottom out at 6m because you never know when you'll completely stink it up and have a top 10-12 pick. At 6m, you can at least go 10m for that pick the next season. Or, if you're smart, you can draft a guy who won't sign and get the comp pick the next season at 14m.

Posted by kevintam90 on 12/4/2012 2:41:00 AM (view original):Am I correct with the assumption the good teams dont put any money in their college and HS scouting because those draft picks are going to be useless to them regardless anyways?

No. That is a broad statement, and those types of statements will get you into trouble in this game.

The answer to almost everything in HBD is "it depends what you're trying to do".

For an expensive (ideally good) team drafting in the high 20s or 30s, you don't have any money to compete for good IFAs, so the amateur draft can be your only chance to get youth into your system.

Of course if you plan to sign Type As almost every year, then amateur draft scouting is a waste of money.